continuing with Bob Drury and Tom Clavin's work ' The Heart of Everything That is,The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend. Easy reading...

.... Colonel Carrington’s debriefing of his detail commanders, the newly arrived officers, and the civilian wagon masters gave a sense of urgency to completing the fort. Red Cloud, unlike his Indian predecessors, not only was qualified to plan and carry out multiple and simultaneous engagements, but encouraged his raiding parties to employ different tactics for each. His warriors, for instance, had ambushed the reinforcement train directly, but had attacked the first military freight column by using decoys to lure the flanking soldiers away and then falling on the main body of wagons. The raids on the civilian trains had been a combination of the two strategies. Each wagon master reported having been approached by Indians who either signed peaceful intentions or flew flags indicating as much. The leaders had ridden out to parley with them, even presenting small gifts of tobacco and the like. With the Americans’ guard down, the Indians had opened fire at a signal as painted fighters poured down from stands of timber, up out of hidden gullies, and out from behind rolling buttes.

Who knew what Red Cloud would try next? It was best, Carrington noted, to have a stockade to fight from. Lieutenant Templeton’s detail had carried with it a steam powered sawmill from Fort Laramie, and Carrington organized all able bodies into dawn-to-dusk work and escort details. No freight wagons left for the pinery blockhouses, the river, or the hayfields in the little valley on the other side of Lodge Trail Ridge without a mounted armed guard. Within a week four log walls completely encased the little compound, and over 600,000 feet of four-inch plank boards and shingles were piled high next to foundations dug for work sheds, living quarters, and warehouses. Two blockhouses with multiple gun portals were also constructed on Piney Island. The new sawmill was equipped with a steam whistle, which the men found useful for sounding alarms. They were needed. The two logging camps came under serial sniping, to the point where no man even relieved himself without an escort.
https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2019/07/part-11the-heart-of-everything-that.html